A Soldier Now
by SemperSomnium
Summary: Sam drops a world into the enemy's chest, and watches them both burn. (He doesn't want to be a soldier.) Set at the end of the first movie.


**Disclaimer: **I do not own Transformers. This is a piece of _fan_fiction.

**A/N: **This is set at the end of the first movie, as should (hopefully) become bleedingly obvious. Vague hints of Sam/Mikaela and Sam/Bumblebee, but can also be interpreted as friendship; there is nothing explicit or certain. Forewarning for crude language, including the 'f' word. Also warning for my recent writing style; it's a little different, but I hope you like it anyway!

Enjoy!

**A Soldier Now**

"_Listen to me! You're a soldier now."_

Sam's heart is beating loud in his chest, drumming like a prisoner begging for release even as his breaths wheeze past his dry tongue.

_In, out, in, out, out, out!_

An explosion pushes him off his feet, arms flailing widely and rubble bouncing off his back as he flies through boiling, smoke ridden air. For a moment it seems that he can't get enough of it, gasping, mouth open wide and lungs constricting to force out air they just don't hold. Then with a whoosh and a sharp crack he lands back on the ground, cheek banging off the hard cement. He gasps and his lungs flood with dust, sharp enough to sting on the way down.

He's coughing, hacking up god knows what - shrapnel in a warzone that belongs in a movie, not in his goddamn life. But there isn't time – never enough time – Ratchet and Ironhide had fallen behind a block ago, and now it's just him, feet pounding across shattered cement, seeking to avoid the oozing entrails of the city, the sewage system revealed to him by smoking craters.

The All-Spark is light in his arms, barely weighing anything for all that its' sharp edges poke at him. It should have been no burden to carry, yet his arms ache as they hold the life of a world tight against his chest.

The building is approaching quickly, even though Sam is conscious of – _hurry Sam, run, quickly, don't stop!_ – time slipping away as a battle roars behind him and Megatron sniffs him out. He can hear people screaming, dimly, over the piercing scrape of metal and the fierce rumble of buildings collapsing into ruin. He imagines that he can hear clearly over the din of battle the electronic screams of the Autobots. It can't be though – those shrieks were Bumblebee's, evoked at the hands of humans. Not at their Cybertronian counterparts.

The shade of the building is a relief he can't savour, sweat refusing to cool his skin. He's reached the building, but now it's time to go up, then to the helicopter, then out of the city, abandoning Mikaela and Bumblebee and Optimus and the other Autobots –

A splintering crash below him as he leaps up the stairs, taking two at a time. Heavy footfalls and Megatron, growling, and Sam can almost imagine the sneer, the sadistic amusement that would surely curl the face if only he was human. Strangely, his mental image reminds him of Sector 7 and that arsehole Simmons –

So many stairs and his breath is really starting to gasp now, it's a wonder Megatron can't _hear_ him –

The floor falls away behind him, splintering like twigs as Megatron's arm pushes through, grasping for him, for the All-Spark. Sam imagines he can feel that cold metal claw _just – scraping – by_ _– _

But he's beyond the monster's reach and pounding down the hall, up more stairs – so many _fucking _stairs – then out the door, blinded by sharp sunlight. He spares a moment to wonder that the city hasn't fallen to ruins around him while he was trapped in the shadowed confines of the building.

Then he is running again, flare burning in his hand, and time seems to stretch as the helicopter rises into sight, a black covered soldier seeing him, reaching for him –

"We've got the boy –"

– and Sam thinks, relief pouring through him:

_Now here's a real soldier, he'll take care of it, no need to carry the heavy burden of a planet in my arms anymore – _

But –

"Watch out!"

Too late, Starscream has already sent the helicopter crashing away, on fire and out of control.

Sam doesn't even have the chance to watch as those soldiers fall, already running – but to where? There is nowhere, he is on top of a fucking _building_ for Christ's sake –

The statue offers little protection as he edges around it, clinging with his finger tips, too aware of the All-Spark hanging precariously in his arms and the ground so far below him. He remembers the feeling of falling from Optimus and the way the world had spun, a dizzying chorus of lights and air and wide open spaces that didn't care who he was or that he had just discovered an alien race; only knowing that he was tiny and insignificant and gravity's –

– and wouldn't that be a relief, to just _let go_ –

– but no, no, he can't, he won't. He's a soldier now –

– _a soldier – _

– has to be, can't afford not to be. The All-Spark remains clutched to his chest, next to his fiercely pounding heart.

"Is it fear or courage that compels you fleshling?" The voice scrapes across Sam's ears like gravel.

How to answer that? Fear is beating in his chest and slithering through his blood, scrambling his mind until all he can feel is the All-Spark; all he can see is Bumblebee, screaming; and all he can hear is Lennox saying, "_you're a soldier now_." _A soldier, _his heart pounds. _A soldier_, his mind rejects.

"Give me the All-Spark and you may live to be my pet." Megatron's voice is so fucking arrogant, all sneering amusement, confident in his ability to counter whatever Sam may do.

And Sam thinks of Bee, tied down and paralysed as some government grunts open him up to look at his insides, attempting to steal the secrets held in his alien skin. And Sam knows that being a pet to a race that believes itself superior to every other isn't any way to escape the chaos threatening to consume him.

His voice rasps up his throat, tearing at the delicate skin there, but he shouts anyway because maybe then he'll feel confident and proud in his defiance. "I'm never giving you this All-Spark!"

He has a moment to savour the jackrabbit beating of his heart before Megatron's sinister voice is grinning, "Oh, so unwise," and the statue he precariously clings to shatters. He falls and it's a thousand times worse than falling off Optimus because now the cube is falling with him, pointy and alien and so _fucking heavy_, even though it weighs so very little –

The hands that catch him aren't yellow this time, but a deep blue and much larger. The relief – so all-consuming that for a moment it stops his heart – is the same, but it only lasts a moment before it falls away, slipping from his grasp as easily as water. Because Optimus is falling too and Megatron screams as he follows them, all rage and bright, blinding hate.

The ground shakes as Optimus and Megatron fight, reverberating with shrieking metal and electronic screams. Sam ducks into a crater and presses the All-Spark to his chest, to his heart which pounds faster than Sam can breathe. He watches as the aliens fight, as they bring a city down around them, as he cowers in a hole and wishes he was anywhere but here.

But – but.

Optimus falls, and Megatron looms over him, already screaming in victory. Sam remembers falling from those shoulders, being caught by those hands. He remembers a truck parked in his backyard – _God_ but his parents are going to kill him – and the ghost of an alien world being conjured by blue optics. A memory, given to him in trust.

Sam remembers – _a soldier now_ – the strength it took to yell at Simmons, to tell the Secretary of Defence the truth, to lead a group of veteran soldiers into an alien war. Remembers a girl brave enough to get into a car, and a car brave enough to show him the answers, the world, the _truth_. Brave enough to trust him, when Bee's screams still echoed around his torture chamber.

His feet are moving before he consciously decides to, breath fast and shallow and legs aching and gut churning, but:

He thrusts the cube up into Megatron and watches, feels, as it breaks into tiny pieces and flows away; sand, dripping through his fingers; a world crushed by time and circumstance into fine grains, gone.

He drops a world into the enemy's chest, and watches them both burn.

After, after – is there an after, after this? – Optimus tells him that he owes him a debt, and Sam wants to laugh and laugh and laugh. He would if his chest wasn't still constricted tight and hot.

Mikaela looks at him and he's glad, so glad, that she got into that car with him and that he didn't get her killed.

And Bumblebee speaks – what's with that? He speaks now? But it's better, isn't it, better than the screams and squeals of alien mechanical pain – and _chooses him_. Him, Sam Witwicky, high school nobody and closeted geek, but no, no.

He's a soldier now. (Isn't he?) He discovered an alien race and spat on government douche bags – metaphorically – and destroyed a world – not as metaphorically as he would have liked.

(He bought a car and drove a girl home and maybe fell in love a little – with yellow and black racing stripes and the fierceness of an Amazon warrior reborn and with the music of a temperamental radio.)

He clings to the name Sam Witwicky because he doesn't know who he is anymore.

Stuck on repeat words cycle, a bass beat of running robotic feet and guitar solo of mechanical screams backing them up:

_You're a soldier now_ –

– _a soldier_ –

And Sam closes his eyes and wonders:

_am I a soldier now? Now that I've held the beating, pulsing life of an entire race within my arms – and killed it?_

He sleeps that night in a military base, Bumblebee being fixed by Ratchet a few floors down and Mikaela in the bed next to his, and he dreams of war. Not of cybertronic screams or human blood and bombs, but of him, fighting, fighting, fighting and grinning through it all: fierce.

He doesn't want to be a soldier.

(but maybe Lennox's words aren't as easy to kill as the possibility of alien worlds)

**Fin**

**Author's Request: **I would love to hear your opinions on this piece; a short one-liner is just as appreciated as valuable con-crit. :)


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